Stuck on a Rooftop
by Rampant Dreamer
Summary: A growing identity crisis leads Alex Mercer to search for himself in the unlikeliest of places: a conversation with a captive civilian on top of a skyscraper.


**Note**: One of my favorite things to do in Prototype is to take a pedestrian up on top of a building, but sometimes I wish the NPCs could say more than 'herk, put me down!'. I started imagining how a conversation with an NPC would go and this was the result. This will probably be just a one shot unless people want me to continue. Enjoy and let me know what you think, please.

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It took about three minutes for her to stop crying. I sat there watching her the entire time. Her hair was a mess, tussled from the run up the side of the skyscraper, but she made no attempt to tidy it. I think she was still in shock.

The two of us sat in silence on the roof of the towering building. I didn't know who the woman was, but I had brought her here. Sometimes I threw people from tall heights like this to see what kind of distance I could get, but this time I decided to try something different; I was going to strike up a conversation.

It was proving harder than I had imagined.

"I brought you up here to talk to you," I started clumsily. Anything to end the awkward silence.

The woman lifted her head, still shaking and sobbing gently. Her back was pressed up against the wall of the roof access door structure. She looked at me with confusion and after a while asked, "Why me?"

I really didn't have a good reason for her. 'Wrong place wrong time' would just belittle what she was going through. "You caught my eye. You seemed afraid."

"I was afraid." Her response was slow and measured, betraying her incredulity. "Afraid that you'll kill me."

"I still might," I pointed out without thinking.

She looked like she might start crying again briefly, but then said in a quiet voice, "Yeah..."

I winced at the resignation in her voice. This wasn't working as I'd hoped. "Look, I didn't bring you up here to threaten you."

"Then why did you bring me here?" A hint of hysteria crept into her question.

"I don't know! Okay? I don't..." My frustration matched her panic. I sighed and stood. "Maybe I should just get it over with."

As soon as I did, the woman jumped to her feet too. She held her hands out placatingly. "No! No. You don't need to do that. You had a reason for bringing me up here, what is it? Do you... need to... talk about something?"

I couldn't help but scoff. "This is pathetic. I've killed thousands of other people just like you, without a second thought. And yet here I am, looking for some sign of... connection. I want to know if there's anything human in me left. If I even can feel anymore, or if it's all just a ruse."

She looked thoughtful, contemplative, almost scheming. I could see the gears in her head turning. She was trying to come up with a plan to keep herself alive, something to say that would prolong the inevitable or maybe even earn her a way out of this. She finally spoke a moment before I made up my mind to toss her off the building and be done with it. "Do you feel sorry for the people you've killed?"

I shook my head once and sat back down on the roof's edge, looking at the street far below. "No. I don't think so. But part of me wishes I did. I try to put myself in their shoes, and all I can feel is contempt. So many people going about their lives, convinced of their own importance." I glanced back at her and shrugged. "I have the ability to show them just how wrong they are. How little they truly mean."

A flicker of horror crossed her face but it was soon replaced by grim understanding. "But when you show them, they die. You're not helping anyone; nobody learns anything." Her tone grew in strength until it almost became accusatory. I glared at her but she met my gaze without flinching, and my respect for her rose.

"I learn it," I practically growled. "I've had to learn it every day since I woke up. Everyone I meet looks at me with distrust and hate. Like I'm a nuisance for interrupting their routines, for disrupting their pleasant lives. My own sister pulls away from me in fear." The thought of Dana flinching back from my offered hug tightened my hands into fists. I watched my knuckles turn white and my arms shake with rage until my vision blurred. My voice sounded raspy to my ears when I spoke. "If humanity has rejected me, why shouldn't I reject it?"

The sound of fabric sliding on brick told me the woman was moving along the wall towards me. She didn't step forward though- probably still too afraid. "Humanity hasn't rejected you: you just haven't given it a reason to trust you yet. Everywhere you go, bloodshed and infection follows. The news shows stories of all kinds of horrib-"

"Yeah!" I stood up from the ledge and yelled at her. "I've done all kinds of horrible. Horrible is my middle name. I'm just a horrible, horrible guy!" Anger and sarcasm blended together and burst out of me, like I couldn't even control them. I felt winded, and weirdly hollow. Even though my words weren't directed at her, the woman cowered against the wall. The tension between us hung in the air for a few moments until I shook my head and turned around, looking out over the city. "Is that really all that's left? I'm seen as the bad guy so I become the bad guy?"

"I-it doesn't have t-to be that way." The sudden stuttering matched the desperation in her plea, as though she was worried she was losing her chance. "You can do a lot of good with your abilities. You can help people."

"Why would I help them?"

"I don't know, why would you?" She repeated my question as though I knew the answer and was playing dumb. Before I could interject she continued on. "What do you want? What are you looking for?"

Now there was something I knew. Maybe even the only thing I knew. "I'm going to find the people who did this to me, and then I'm going to make them pay."

"So you're looking for revenge?" she quickly retorted. Her dismissive manner set off a nerve.

"I'm looking for some goddamn justice! Nobody seems to care about me! I was killed, brought back to life in some fucked up experiment, and then hunted like an animal. And no one bats an eye. That makes them just as guilty."

"And after you've killed everyone who's 'guilty'? What then? When you're standing at the top of an empty, burning city, knowing that 'justice' has been served, how are you going to feel?"

"I won't." The answer was obvious, no matter how hesitant I was to admit it. "I won't feel a thing."

Her pleas for mercy began before I even touched her and declined to mindless screaming by the time I dropped her off the edge of the building. It wasn't personal, I told myself. She knew too much about me to be left alive.

And there was no way I could consume her: then I'd never be able to forget the look of betrayal in her eyes.


End file.
